Thursday, June 29, 2017

The Age of Robos: Medical Division #Science #Medicine #Diagnostics

The source article in Scientific America goes through a variety of ways deep learning (i.e. another expression for Artificial Intelligence which is slightly less awkward) and the interested student is invited to review all of them but we want the medical aspect.  (Scientific American:  Deep Learning Networks Rival Human Vision)

The Rockhouse is well aware this topic is not a huge hit with people but maybe roll with it since this is not about flogging the fact the robos are coming.



Credit: World Economic Forum

Note:  quite possibly the sorriest example of trying to anthropomorphize a robo you will ever see.


Deep learning for visual tasks is making some of its broadest inroads in medicine, where it can speed experts’ interpretation of scans and pathology slides and provide critical information in places that lack professionals trained to read the images—be it for screening, diagnosis, or monitoring of disease progression or response to therapy. This year, for instance, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a deep-learning approach from the start-up Arterys for visualizing blood flow in the heart; the purpose is to help diagnose heart disease. Also this year, Sebastian Thrun of Stanford University and his colleagues described a system in Nature that classified skin cancer as well as dermatologists did. The researchers noted that such a program installed on smartphones, which are ubiquitous around the world, could provide “low-cost universal access to vital diagnostic care.” Systems are also being developed to assess diabetic retinopathy (a cause of blindness), stroke, bone fractures, Alzheimer’s disease and other maladies.

- SA

There's nothing particularly new in that roster and the reason for bringing the article is they present as they will.  I choose from that which is available but I don't go out to google Age of Robos or some such.

Frankly, we're disappointed since we don't see the article as having gone far enough.  Here's one from a few days ago in which robos are not only better at visualizing rectal tumors, they're better at performing the surgery to remove them.  (Ithaka:  Greater Surgical Precision using Robotic Surgery #Science #Medicine)


The Rockhouse is well aware people are not much pleased by articles regarding the Age of Robos but it's evolution in action and will happen anyway.  The point in the current article and the one previous is the robos are coming into the game at extremely sophisticated levels and the interested student would do well to take that into account in the context of career planning since the Age of Robos isn't just about retail.


Our biggest concern about the Age of Robos isn't the fact of it but rather the assiduous attempts to anthropomorphize them and scientists have been as bad, possibly worse, for that than anyone else.  There was another article on Ithaka not so far back about how AI researchers are trying to teach robos how to learn about love.  On the list of things you really don't need in life, where would you put a robo which loves you.

There's more than tinker toy comedy in this since the Rockhouse sees a most pernicious malaise when it really occurs to people, wow, robos do everything better.  When the 15-29 kids are highly unstable anyway in terms of suicide, the kind of hopelessness which may well come from that is a deep concern.

Robo:  I'm going to take your job but I love you

How much WTF is any kid supposed to take.  Maybe it would be better if these robos learned something of compassion first.

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